Download A prisoner being led to sacrifice and decapitation

AZTEC:
Social
AZTEC: Social
• Aztec society moved from a loose association
of clans to a stratified society w/ a supreme
ruler.
• Military class: supply captives for sacrifice
• The social stresses created by the rise of
nobles and system of terror and tribute =
internal weaknesses that contributed to Aztec
collapse
AZTEC: Political
AZTEC: Political
• King: civil power and a representative of the
gods
• Tribute Empire: Aztec had political domination
but not direct territorial control
AZTEC: Political
A prisoner being led to sacrifice and decapitation
AZTEC: Political
• Still open to debate - Was Aztec sacrifice :
– a result of religious conviction?
– a tactic for terror and political control?
AZTEC: Interaction
AZTEC: Interaction
• Illustration of an eagle perched atop a cactus.
According to legend, Huitzilopochtli,
the Aztec war god, told the Aztecs that this
divine sign would guide them to their new
homeland.
AZTEC: Interaction
AZTEC: Interaction
• Depiction of the floating gardens (chinampas)
of Tenochtitlán. The city of Tenochtitlán was
built on an island, and the Aztecs cultivated
year-round gardens along the banks of the
island.
AZTEC: Culture
AZTEC: Culture
• Such skull racks as this one from the Aztec
ruins at Tenochtitlán are found at the sites of
many ancient Mesoamerican civilizations. The
display of hundreds of stucco skulls is thought
to symbolize the heads of decapitated
captives
AZTEC: Culture
AZTEC: Culture
• An Aztec human sacrifice ceremony from
the Codex Magliabecchi. Human sacrifice became
commonplace among the Aztecs after the famine
of 1450–1451 CE. The priest cut out the victim's
still-beating heart with an obsidian knife,
displayed it, then rolled the dead carcass down
the stairs. As many as 20,000 people could be
sacrificed in a single day to provide the blood
necessary to ensure the sun's rise.
• Blood = “precious water” needed to sustain the
gods
AZTEC: Culture
• Xipe Totec priest wearing flayed
skin, Aztec, painted volcanic
basalt, Central Mexican
Highlands, 1400–1521 CE. Xipe
Totec was the god of agriculture,
spring, disease, and goldsmithing.
His name in Nahuatl means "our
lord the flayed one" and appears
to have correlated with the ritual
practice of flaying one's captives
in many Mesoamerican societies.
AZTEC: Culture
• Detail of the Codex Cospi, an Aztec divinatory calendar,
showing the planet Venus, Tlauixcalpantecuhtli, attacking
warriors. Year symbols are on the left of the image.
AZTEC: Culture
• An undated illustration
of the god,
Huitzilopochtli. In Aztec
mythology,
Huitzilopochtli was a
god of war, a sun god,
and the patron of the
city of Tenochtitlan. He
was also the national
god of the Mexicas of
Tenochtitlan.
AZTEC: Culture
• The Aztecs had a complex
writing system. They kept
written historical records
in books made of separate
pages. Another name for
this type of ancient book
is a codex (KOH-deks).
Many pages of Aztec
books were made of bark
or animal skins.
• Spoken language: Nahuatl
AZTEC: Economics
AZTEC: Economics
• Picture on left: A page from Aztec emperor
Montezuma II's tribute roll, the Codex
Mendoza. Under King Ahuitzotl, the Aztecs
extended their rule south to the Valley of
Oaxaca and down the Pacific to present-day
Guatemala. This page from the tribute book of
the last Aztec emperor, Montezuma II, shows
that seven towns annually paid 2,800 mantles
and tunics, one live eagle, and two war
costumes and shields.
AZTEC: Economics
• The state controlled the use and distribution of many
commodities
• Tribute: goods or money paid by conquered peoples to
their conquerors
– Those who surrendered paid less
– Examples: Food, slaves, sacrificial victims
• Trade:
–
–
–
–
Periodic markets
Most trade done as barter
Cacao beans and gold dust sometimes used as currency
Pochteca: special merchant class dealing w/ long-distance
trade in luxury items (Ex - tropical bird plumes, cacao)
AZTEC: Economics
AZTEC: Economics
• Technological constraints: Without the wheel
or animals for power, Indian civilizations were
unable to free women from the 30-40 hours/
week to prepare basic food
• Corn was easy and productive to grow, but
time consuming to prepare
INCA: Social
• The Spanish melted
down almost every
Inca artifact of silver or
gold. Rare pieces that
survive include
figurines from
sacrificial burials, like
this one of a man with
the stretched earlobes
of a noble.
INCA: Social
• The Inca society was a vertical hierarchical
organization divided in four social classes.
• At the top of the stratum was the Sapa Inca, the
most powerful person in the empire.
• Below was the royalty, comprised by the sons of
the Sapa Inca and his close relatives.
• The third social class was the nobility which
included royal relatives and those who attained
distinction through their services such as priests
and chiefs.
• At the bottom of the pyramidal social structure
was the ayllu which included the majority of the
population.
INCA: Political
• Eighteenth-century
portrait of Pachacuti
Inca Yupanqui, ninth
emperor of the Inca.
Under Pachacuti's
rule, the Inca Empire
expanded to become
the most powerful
empire in the New
World.
INCA: Political
INCA: Political
• Into was the Inca god of the sun and considered
all-powerful.
• Inca rulers considered themselves direct
descendants of Inti, the patron of empire and
military conquest.
• The successive Inca rulers could claim divine
lineage and emphasize their role as intermediary
between the gods and ordinary people
• With the expansion of the Inca Empire sun
worship was incorporated into the religions of the
conquered peoples and used as imperial
propaganda that the Inca were the people with
divine right to rule.
INCA: Interaction
INCA: Interaction
• Inca roads covered over 40,000 km (25,000 miles).
• The Inca road system formed a network known as the
royal highway which became an invaluable part of the
Inca empire, not only facilitating the movement of
armies, people, and goods, but also providing an
important physical symbol of imperial control.
• Across plains, deserts, and mountains, the network
connected settlements and administrative centres.
Well-built and lasting, many roads included bridges,
causeways, stairways, and also had small stations
(chaskiwasi) and sometimes larger, more luxurious
complexes (tambos) dotted along every 20 km or so,
where travellers could spend the night and refresh.
INCA: Interaction
INCA: Interaction
• 1 - Agricultural terraces built by the Inca at
Moray, near Cuzco, Peru. Crops including
wheat and quinoa were grown on the
terraces, which included a built-in irrigation
system
• 2 - Inca irrigation channel aqueduct at
Ollantaytambo, an archaeological site
northwest of Cuzco in present-day Peru.
INCA: Culture
• A quipu, the knotted
cord device used by
the Incas for keeping
accounts, from Peru,
about 1430–1532
INCA: Culture
• Golden Inca vase from about
1500 CE, found in Peru. The
Incas believed that their
emperor was descended from
the sun and that gold was his
symbol. His temple in Cuzco
had walls covered with gold, a
garden of golden corn plants,
and a golden llama. Few
golden artifacts remained after
Francisco Pizarro collected
them in 1533 for the ransom of
the Inca emperor Atahualpa.
INCA: Culture
• Animals, goods, and humans
were sacrificed
• These are examples of child
sacrifice, in which they may
have been drugged and taken
up a mountain where they froze
to death.
INCA: Culture
• The bright red of
Inca clothing came
from a small insect
that lives on cacti.
INCA: Culture
• Ruins of Machu Picchu, the 15th-century Inca
city situated deep in the Andes Mountains.
INCA: Economy
INCA: Economy
• Caption: Under the care of a watchman, corn
dries in the autumn air of Yucay. The Inca
developed high-yield varieties of this grain
that continue to thrive in the rich soil of the
Urubamba River Valley.
• The empire’s main crop, corn filled state
granaries, fed laborers and soldiers, and was
fermented into beer for festivals.
INCA: Economy
INCA: Economics
• The Inca government controlled the economy.
• Instead of paying taxes, Incas had to “pay” their
government in labor. This labor tax system was
called the mita.
• As part of the mita, people also had to work for the
government. Farmers worked on governmentowned farms in addition to their own farms.
Villagers produced cloth and grain for the army.
Other Incas worked in mines, served in the army,
or built roads to pay their labor tax.
INCA: Economics
• There were no merchants or markets in the
Inca Empire. Instead, government officials
would distribute goods collected through the
mita. Leftover goods were stored in the capital
for emergencies.